Sam's daughter is killed by terrorists. As a man with a particular set of skills, he makes it his life mission to find those who killed her and bring them to justice. And by justice he means the receiving end of a bullet. But just when he thinks he has things figured out, it all takes a very dark, dangerous twist.

Recommended Age

Minimum Age

Available On...

14

12

PS3, Xbox 360, PC

Overall Fun

Length

Frustration

Violence

Sexuality

Substances

Gambling

6

4

4

7

0

0

0

Mods

Religion

Anti-Law

Community

Sports

Magic

Miscellaneous

0

0

1

0

2

0

2

1. Gameplay

Overall Fun - 6

Splinter Cell: Conviction has an interesting story but the mechanics came across as an unfortunate attempt to pander to both the hardcore stealth players and the less stealthy casual audience. The unfortunate part is that it can’t really appeal to either group. Splinter Cell fans will be turned off by the forced third-person nature of this game and the numerous linear levels, while newcomers will be confused by blend of third person shooter and “stealth” mechanics.

Don't worry, Sam won't beat this guy up. Maybe.

Conviction is a fairly big leap from the older Splinter Cell titles. The silenced pistol in those titles was meant to be a tool to shoot out lights and cameras, rarely to eliminate enemies. So you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that this game gave me the ability to pick and customize a variety of pistols and the ability to pick a primary weapon, many of them unsilenced. A Splinter Cell game that allows the player to use unsilenced weapons effectively hardly feels like a Splinter Cell game at all. Why bother trying to be stealthy when you can just blast everyone away in a matter of seconds?

Because the game forces you to be stealthy in certain sections, that’s why. You might be okay with taking out all of the enemies at once with an unsilenced assault rifle, but there will be sections where you can’t be discovered at all. If an enemy sees you, if an enemy finds a dead body, or even if you trip off a sensor, you fail and have to restart at the nearest checkpoint. And often these checkpoints are five or ten minutes back. I really disliked these sections.

Ugh.

The story of the game was solid, but nothing noteworthy. Sam’s daughter is killed by agents of Third Echelon, the organization that Sam works with. He goes on a revenge-driven spree and inadvertently uncovers a plot to assassinate the President. It’s fairly standard black-ops, spy-based Tom Clancy action writing. I liked it, but it wasn’t really enough to salvage the lackluster gameplay.

Overall this game left a lot to be desired. After playing Dishonored and seeing how much fun stealth games can be, even for a core audience, I couldn’t help but be disappointed with Conviction’s showing.

Length - 4

The campaign took me around 6 hours to complete. I could have gone back to complete achievements or try and complete each level without being caught, but without any choices or major options in the story there wasn’t much purpose. There are multiplayer modes that can add to the length of game, but these seemed to hinge on replayability rather than an abundance of content. This would probably work very well if you enjoyed the game and the mechanics, but I couldn’t find the overall experience compelling enough to spend much time in the content outside of the campaign.

Frustration Factor - 4

This game had a bad habit of switching between sections where the player could be as loud as he wanted and sections where the player was required to remain completely stealthy. This was very problematic, since it meant that I had to drastically change my playstyle from level to level. One minute I could be flying through a level guns blazing and the next I would have to make sure that none of the enemies I killed were discovered. It ruined the pacing of the game for me.

The one thing that was a bit frustrating was the “execution” system. I never really fully understood how to get points in order to be able to execute opponents. I tried killing enemies silently, I tried killing enemies with melee attacks, but nothing I did ever seemed to fill the meter. Consequently, outside of the early chapters, the only time I ever used the execute mechanic were when the game automatically filled my meter.

2. Parental Notices

Violence - 7

Violence in this game is fairly mild. The player will have to kill enemies, but the number of enemies the player kills depends entirely on their preferred style of play. Players that want to be quick and don’t care about being seen will almost certainly have to kill every enemy they encounter. Players that prefer a stealthier approach will likely avoid most of the enemies in a level. When players do kill enemies, they can do so in a number of different ways. Hits from all firearms will result in a small amount of blood that goes away quickly. There is never any gore.

Phwip! Silent headshot!

The player can also knock out enemies from close range. For the most part these attacks result in no blood, although they are clearly lethal.

It's easier to just shoot them.

Some of the interrogations get more violent than others. Part of this has to do with the length of the interrogation compared to most combat and the camera angles, which capture the violence in a much more obvious way than normal combat.

I'd feel bad for him if he wasn't aiding and abetting terrorists.

Still, despite this, there are definitely some scenes where violence is increased compared to normal combat. For example, one interrogation where Sam pins an enemy’s hand to a car using a knife.

That doesn't look quite right...

But this isn’t typical for the combat in most of the game. Most of the combat will either be small amounts of blood from firearms or hand-to-hand combat that is relatively free of blood.

This is the typical distance for firearms combat.

There will be some blood found in the environment. This is usually the case if combat was recently occurring in the space. Sam can find dead bodies in the environment in a number of chapters, and these typically include blood on the walls or floor.

That's quite the punctuation mark.

Sexuality - 0

Sexuality is not a factor in this game.

Substances - 0

Substances are not a factor in this game.

Gambling - 0

Gambling is not a factor in this game.

3. Other Factors

Mods - 0

There are no modding tools available for this game.

Religion - 0

Religion is not a factor in this game.

Anti-Law - 1

After the death of his daughter and the revelation that Third Echelon, Sam’s organization, was involved in the murder, Sam goes rogue and attempts to take down the people responsible. The lines between whether or not Sam is fighting with or against the US’ interests become fairly hazy until later in the game.

Online Community - 0

The game includes cooperative missions that can be played with a friend and a single competitive game mode that pits players against other players. However, when I tried to play these there was no one online. In any case, I expect most players to team up with a friend rather than find a random player online.

Extreme Sports - 2

For the most part, extreme sports are not a significant factor in this game. Sam can climb walls, pipes, and other objects in order to maneuver around the levels, and he makes this whole process seem far simpler than it is in real life.

Strongest fingers ever.

But it doesn’t get much more intense than this. Sam is still human and can only do what would make sense for an extremely strong person. The player will do the actions described and shown above frequently, but it’s nothing impossible.

I'm so sneaky even I don't know where I am right now.

Magic - 0

Magic is not a factor in this game.

Miscellaneous - 2

InterrogationThe player will interrogate a number of characters over the course of the game. These interrogations are mild, but each one will involve physically beating the detainee in order to extract more information.

And yet there's no waterboarding in this game. Such a missed opportunity.

In one case the interrogation involves shooting the individual in the legs.